Toronto bakery wins big at Ontario's Best Butter Tart Festival

One of Toronto's favourite bakeries just earned another feather in its cap by taking the top prize at Ontario's Best Butter Tart Festival.

The Stanley Cup finals might be stealing the show for sports fans in Canada right now, but for foodies, another battle was being fought over the weekend: for the title of Ontario's best butter tart.

Held annually in Midland, Ont., Ontario's Best Butter Tart Festival (which is both the event's official name and an appropriate superlative), bakeries from all across the province flock to the small town in hopes of being recognized for their gooey, sugary confections.

The enthusiasm about the festival, which just so happens to be one of the largest butter tart festivals in the entire world, is appropriate, considering the quintessentially Canadian treats were first invented in Barrie, just a short 45-minute drive from Midland, in 1900.

Now in its 22nd year, the 2025 edition of the festival welcomed over 200 vendors and upwards of 100,000 visitors from across the province for the one-day event, to say nothing of the over 300,000 butter tarts that were sold.

The real reason everyone was there, though — on top of simply wanting to celebrate one of life's sweetest joys — was to find out which bakeries would be crowned as this year's proprietors of the best butter tarts in town.

Last year, Toronto's The Pie Commission walked away with best-in-show and first-place in the Traditional category, and this year the city has secured yet another win, albeit from a different Toronto bakery that not only brought home a win, but accomplished something no other bakery has in the history of the Midland Butter Tart Festival.

East York's Circles and Squares Bakery walked away with first-place finishes in both major categories, as well as Best in Show for the entire festival.

Their classic Maple Pecan Tart took home first place in the Traditional category, while they swept the Wild Style category with a fittingly unique Coconut Cream Tart, loaded with dense butter tart filling and topped with an airy whipped coconut cream.

Owner David Baxter tells me he's "thrilled" with the bakery's results at the festival.

"We pour a lot of heart into what we do, so to be recognized across the board feels really special. We all put a ton of work into going to the festival every year, so it's amazing for our entire team to feel like their hard work has been worth it," he says.

This isn't the first time the bakery has gotten major recognition at the festival, though. Circles and Squares won first place in the Traditional category back in 2023, and have placed at least three other years before that, but this is the first time they (or anyone else, for that matter) managed to pull off a complete sweep.

As for how the recent accolades will impact Circles and Squares in the future, David says that "it means we'll need to have more butter tarts baked for the next month or two," but that, as butter tarts only make up a small portion of what the bakery has to offer, they'll be business as usual for the most part.

In addition to their butter tarts, you can find some seriously stacked sandwiches, croissants, baguettes, and beyond at Circles and Squares' two Toronto locations, and, trust me when I say, they all deserve first-place ribbons in their own right.

For his part, David agrees.

"We'd rather be known as a great bakery than a great butter tart bakery," David says.